Chancellor's Parashah Commentary

This week's commentary was written by Ismar Schorsch, the chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary.

As my bar-mitzva parasha, Lech Lecha has always carried a special measure
of meaning for me. It marks the beginning of Jewish history with a story
of exile. "The Lord said to Abram, `Go forth from your native land and
from your father's house to the land that I will show you'"(Gen. 12:1).
And so did the Schorsch family, millennia later in December of 1938 from
Nazi Germany. I even bear the name of Abraham's son Isaac, born in this
same parasha. Yitzhak is a joyous name filled with hope and
affirmation. It means "he shall laugh." For Abraham, Yitzhak signified
the capacity of having a child in old age in a strange land. For my
parents, Yitzhak bespoke an act of defiance in dark times. Faith has the
power to shape reality, as it is said of Abraham in our parasha: "And
because he put his trust in the Lord, He reckoned it to his merit" (Gen.
15:6). In short, my bar-mitzva in 1948, some eight years after we
arrived in America, linked my life forever with Lech Lecha.

I offer this autobiographical fragment to make a point. For Jews, the
Torah is not an inert text, waiting to be read quickly and dutifully. It
is, rather, an equal partner in an extraordinary interactive discourse,
what Martin Buber described as an "I-Thou" relationship. Confronted
intensely, the Torah yields as much running commentary on our personal
lives as we generate to illuminate its contents. To read it attentively
is not only to enter the eternal dialogue between God and Israel, but to
personalize it.

Abraham is instructed by God to do what we humans fear most, to be
uprooted, to leave home and hearth for an unfamiliar destination. The
midrash feels the depth of his anxiety. God needs to reassure Abraham
that he will not end up alone and destitute. "I will make you a great
nation" — i.e., you will have children. "And I will bless you" — i.e.,
you will find wealth. "I will make your name great" — i.e., you will
become famous (Gen. 12:2).

The divine command casts Abraham in the role of outsider. He repudiates
what has grown conventional, comfortable, and constricted. Monotheism
challenges the fundamental tenets of Mesopotamian civilization. Abraham
anticipates the fate of his progeny as eternal aliens, the vigilant
critics of the societies in which they temporarily reside. To serve as a
blessing for all nations means to see things independently and different
from the margins of the body politic.

The midrash suggests that Abraham was actually expelled from his
homeland. The command to leave did not come unannounced. He had long
struggled to formulate a conception of God more in tune with reason,
ethics, and existence than offered by the myths of paganism. His
kidneys, the seat of wisdom for the ancients, taught him both secular and
religious knowledge, that is, he was self-taught. He ridiculed the
customers of his father's idols and eventually smashed them all. His
subversive theology soon attracted the concern of the king, who subjected
Abraham to an ordeal which he, though not his brother Haran, survived.
Only then did he finally hear God's voice that it's time to get out. The
quest for truth had turned Abraham into a religious renegade as it would
his descendants.

But the path to reestablishing himself in the land of Canaan is neither
direct nor smooth. The Torah adds a detour that reveals an exquisite
ethical touch. God is not prepared to let Abraham strike roots just
yet. If indeed he is to create a model society based on compassion and
justice, he needs first to experience what it means to live without
either. It is for this reason that God seems to throw him a curve ball.
While he will die and be buried in the promised land, not so his
children. "Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land
not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years;
but I will execute judgment on the nations they shall serve, and in the
end they shall go free with great wealth" (Gen. 15:13-14). The pathos of
this divine message is heightened by the fact that when it comes, Abraham
stands unchallenged by anyone. He has just trounced a coalition of
powerful foreign invaders, freeing his nephew Lot in the process, and the
land lies before him for the taking.

And yet it is precisely at the moment of triumph and fruition that
Abraham's hand is stayed. Only the painful experience of injustice can
guarantee a modicum of success in creating a just society. Not abstract
doctrines of theology or political theory, but only prolonged suffering
will generate both the wisdom and passion to reach for the ideal. The
conquest of Canaan without Egyptian bondage would have yielded little
that was new or edifying. It is no accident that the commandment
repeated most often in the Torah is the injunction not to oppress the
stranger, for it is a vision of society born in the misery of Egyptian
deprivation. Ever since, we, Abraham's children, have continued to dream
of and struggle for an inclusive society without strangers or outsiders.